Do you also step on the scales every morning? This is controversial even among fitness coaches. But if you do it right, weighing every day can be useful – and give you tailwind when losing weight and building muscle.
Do you know the Amazon Prime series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”?
The leading actress, Midge Maisel, has a pretty weird daily routine:
It measures the circumference of your stomach, hips, thighs and calves.
And everyone. Individual. Day.
If you ask me, I think that’s a bit exaggerated.
Sure, if you want to build muscle, you should also measure your body circumference.
But definitely not every day, every two weeks is enough. And what about your body weight?
If you want to lose fat, then weighing every day can be useful.
The emphasis is on CAN.
What is (D) a feedback system?
Personally, I’ve been weighing myself once a week for ages before doing my body fat percentage.
I also recommend this to my clients – regardless of whether they want to lose fat or build muscle.
What you measure, you control.
The motto is attributed to the economist Peter Drucker (“what gets measured, gets managed”). But the principle can be applied to any kind of change – including physical ones.
If you want to achieve goals, you need a feedback system.
So something to which you can determine whether you are getting any closer to your goal – or not.
If you want to lose fat, you should keep track of your physique. So body fat percentage and body weight.
I track both in an Excel spreadsheet. My preference for Excel probably has something to do with my previous job as a project manager.
Modern digital scales like the Body + from Withings do the paperwork for you. They log your measurements for you and prepare them graphically for you in the health app.
This means that the time required is minimal: Just hop on the scales for a moment, done.
There is, however, another factor – and that could play a serious role for some of us …
The wrong and the right mindset when weighing
There are countless people who outsource control of their emotions to their scales.
If you weigh more than yesterday, the day is over – but if that goes down, you are in a good mood.
Not a good idea.
Because your body weight is like the weather here in Hamburg – very changeable. And that’s normal:
Your weight WILL fluctuate from day to day.
If you weigh yourself every day, regardless of whether you lose weight or not, you will notice fluctuations in both directions. Maybe it’s just a few hundred grams of deviation from yesterday, but maybe a few kilos.
Would you like an example? See how my body weight has changed lately.
You can see how clearly individual measurements (light blue) are around turn out the mean (dark blue). There are many reasons for this.
But you should always have one thing in mind:
A sudden change in weight is almost certainly NOT due to body fat.
Especially not if you weigh yourself every day.
Your body won’t store 1-2 kilos of fat in 48 hours.
Not going to happen!
Neither will you be able to lose 1-2 pounds of fat in a day or two. Sorry!
Here is a tip I give to my clients who want to lose weight …
If your weight drops, don’t be too euphoric.
And even if it increases, stay relaxed.
The larger fluctuations are mostly due to the water balance in your body. Or a high-fiber meal that is currently on its journey through your body.
With these thoughts in mind, weighing every day can make sense.
Because this is how you build a stable habit that you automatically stick to. You will also soon see the daily fluctuations as normal.
How to put your weighing every day into practice
Here are a few practical tips for daily weighing:
- Try to get on the scales at the same time every day.
- Record your weight. (If the paperwork is too time-consuming for you, use a WLAN scale that does the logging for you.)
- ONLY pay attention to the LOWEST weight of the week.
That Your body weight fluctuates over the course of seven days, like the DAX, is normal.
You compare the lowest value of a week with that of the previous week.
That’s it.
Anyone who tends to be more than five straight in terms of nutrition at the weekend usually weighs a little more on Monday – and tends to be a little lighter on Friday.
In that case, Friday would be a good day of comparison. But it doesn’t HAVE to be Friday.
Every lower value (regardless of the day) compared to the previous week indicates that your weight loss plan is working.
And something else is important.
In the rarest of cases your body weight will drop for several weeks at a time.
That is also normal. Standing still when losing weight is not uncommon – especially when you are close to your target weight.
It’s best not to stress yourself too much.
With the right attitude, regular weighing feels more like a game.
Suppose you weighed 87 kilos last Tuesday (I’ll just take my weight for this example, no offense!). Now you try to get to 86.5 kilos next Monday or Tuesday.
This (partial) goal usually pushes you to do something for it every day.
Perhaps you take the time to consciously plan your meals, eat more slowly, pull off your workout or actually take 10,000 steps a day.
And then you realize:
A 250-gram packet of butter is currently getting slimmer.
Exactly. 250 grams is a lot. Namely, almost exactly a packet of butter that you carry around with you less on your body.
Conversely, you also remain honest with yourself.
Anyone can claim to have lost 3 kilos in a few days (women’s magazines like to advertise such diets).
The problem is that it CANNOT be fat at all. Mostly it’s water, fiber or other things – hopefully not muscles.
Anyone who thinks they can lose a few kilos of fat in 5 days is fooling themselves.
The advantage is, as soon as you let go of these marketing fairy tales, you develop a more relaxed relationship to your own body weight. And stay realistic:
You get a good picture of your progress if you compare the minimum values of the last two weeks.
This is especially true if you weigh yourself every day for four weeks or more.
Conclusion
If you want your physique to change, you should measure it. REGULARLY.
To do this, you need two values that you should monitor – at least once a week:
Tip: Behind the two links you will find detailed tutorials on both methods.
Don’t worry, with a little practice the time required is minimal: I need a maximum of 3 minutes per week – including transferring my measured values to Excel. Back to the initial question:
Does weighing every day make sense? I think: yes.
And exactly when you …
- First: Want to lose fat.
- Second: lets go of the thought that body weight equals body fat.
- Third: Pay attention to TRENDS instead of individual values - keyword: minimum weight.
This mindset is important. After all, you don’t want to stress yourself with it, but rather maintain a playful approach.
If you like it convenient, you can use a scale that does the logging for you. I am using this model. (Whereby this cheaper model is completely sufficient for our purposes.)